Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

Welp, I've just gotten back from the Easter vigil, and confirmation—am now in full communion with Rome. It's an odd feeling, but an invigorating one ... having been raised Pentecostal, and after decades of pondering the move, it's almost like coming home the impossibly long way around.

Welcome to the Church, dude. Happy Easter. ^_^

Okay, so I've got a fiscal question. I've been reading up on the French Revolution and Ancien Regime, not to mention the appearance of the Papal States in Italy and Bishop Princes in Germany. In France, the Church levied a 20% tax on everyone who couldn't dodge it, ostensibly to support the local parishes, but the money actually mostly went into huge salaries for the high clergy and into monastic orders. Now, when wealth goes from starving people in rags to the bejewelled hands of silk-sporting aristocrats in a nice hat, you know the Emissaries of Jesus aren't doing their jobs properly.

So my question is as follows: how is money collected and distributed in the contemporary church. And while we're at it, how does the power structure work and what say do the local parish priests who directly provide service to the faithful have on how things are done?

Depends. In some Swiss cantons, the state collects the church taxes for the RCC (and the Swiss Reformed Church) in others they're financed directly by the state.

Separation of church and state? What's that?

And how did that happen? I mean, not just in France and not just in money. How did the Church end up inviting the reasons behind why we have the Corrupt Church. Refer to how the Church in Jose Rizals two novels.

Historical reasons: Much like feudalism had its motives for why it emerged and why it disappears, the Church needed the money for a good portion of the Middle Age because Bishops were in charge of the cities after civil service in the Late Roman Empire began to decline and, once the Western Roman Empire fell, the Catholic Church -more specifically, it's monasteries- became the only institution to actively mantain the old texts of the Classical Era in the West until literacy began to return as the urban middle class reemerged during the Low Middle Ages (French periodization).

British perspective: upon the dissolution of the monasteries and breaking up of what amounted to the social services of the country, the average life expectancy of people in England, Scotland and Wales is thought to have dipped significantly.

Hospitals, hospices and hostels run by monasteries took decades to be replaced, if they were replaced at all. Childcare for workers became harder (no more dumping them on the abbey or the nuns for the day when you need to work the fields or get a major project done and Gran wasn't up to it — having to find other solutions often meant poor ones, since vicrages and parish churches weren't designed for that, and Sunday school facilities were things far in the future).

In Germanic states, the Guild system kind of picked up the slack — ish. And, only for those in guilds or aligned to them. They didn't here: it took decades for other charities to be set up to replace them, and they didn't have even the iffy centralised moderating bodies the Catholic Church had developed over centuries to keep some semblance of standards going.

In short, Tudor England was an economic boom time on paper for the middle class and up... unless you got sick, lost your job, suddenly got pregnant or got crippled. The social system got kicked in the fork — that's where the money came from, corruption or not.

The bottom fell out of the bottom. There's also an argument to be made that the divide between men's and women's work got starker... Because you had to do in-house what you could previously farm out on the Church. :/

edited 1st Apr '18 9:32:26 AM by Euodiachloris

@Handle: Nowadays? In most countries, the Catholic Church is funded by voluntary donations and asset revenue (for example, the Vatican Bank).

In parts of Europe, there's still a church tax of about 1% of your income. Usually, you can evade this by leaving the church, but in many cases you have to formally state that you are leaving the Church (and the German church tends to respond by denying sacraments to people who aren't paying - a source of controversy). Most well-known is the German system, which was essentially a deal between the Nazis and the major churches of Germany (Catholic and Protestant) that the state would take over collecting church tax from the churches themselves, and is still in effect today.

In Italy, everyone pays a flat 0.8% of their income as an "otto per mille," but they get to vote on where it goes - roughly 10% goes to the State for welfare assistance, 87% to the Catholic Church and 3% to various other denominations. (A lot - proportionately - of Italian Catholics and atheists instead prefer to support the Waldensians, because the latter denomination has a reputation for being serious about charity.)

A Proto-Protestant group from 1173?

"The Catholic Church declared them heretics, stating that the group's principal error was contempt for ecclesiastical power. " Figures.

How are spending priorities decided? Who gets a say in this? Who are priests, deacons, bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope, accountable to?

Probably works in a similar way to most governments, especially decentralized ones.

Teologically, they denied Purgatory, which is part of the Catholic teaching of the Penitent Church, who are people who died in grace yet have to clean their remaining sins to pass on to heaven and the validity of the Priests power to sanctify water or to act as intermediate of Christ. In terms of their contempt of Ecclesiastical power, I think it's a case of forgetting that you need a degree of hierarchical organization to get things done or you face inner chaos.

If I recall correctly, Priests are in charge of a church while the Deacon acts as an aid to the priest; Bishops are in charge of a diocesis, which is a set territory in which he has authority, and acts as superior for the Priests, they tend to operate in a city like St. Augustine did in Hipona.

Archbishops are another step up from the bishops and are in charge of an Archdiocesis (basically, a larger territory, equal to a province) while Cardinals are senior member that are tasked with the election of the Pope, hence the Collegue of Cardinals, they can be either Bishops or Archbishops.

The Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church and is above all the other members, being himself the Patriarch of Rome in accordance to the original Pentarchy of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem and the leader of these other Patriarchs by right of inheritance of Saint Peter's position as leader of the Church. While he is the head of state, he can be judged by a council if he acts in a way unbeffiting to the successor of St. Peter.

I already know that basic stuff. Who are in that tribunal and how do they get there? What are the sanction mechanisms for the other rungs of the ecclesiarchy? Who do they report to?

"the leader of these other Patriarchs by right of inheritance of Saint Peter's position as leader of the Church"

That's the theory. Not relevant right now.

"you need a degree of hierarchical organization to get things done or you face inner chaos."

I think a Catholic Church goes beyond "a degree".

"Probably works in a similar way to most governments, especially decentralized ones."

The Devil is in the details, in what kind of government it's being similar to, what it purports to achieve, and how it goes about it

edited 2nd Apr '18 11:42:44 PM by TheHandle

Well, in the US at least, every Diocese is legally organized as a non profit corporation, which I believe requires that they have some sort of local governing board. I dont know the details, but this requires some degree of local autonomy.

Update: its hard to find good information, but this article provides an intriguing look into one diocese is organized.

edited 3rd Apr '18 6:49:01 AM by DeMarquis

So...

In South Korea a member of an ultra-radical feminist website committed a host desecration, drawing penis and words implying Jesus is a rapist on a sacremental bread and set it on fire.

Result: For the first time in forever, Korean Catholics and Protestants more or less united, declaring that whoever responsible suffer the consequences. So basically, they are bringing out the torches.

...Yeah. That happened.

Edited by dRoy on Jul 11th 2018 at 10:40:02 PM

Does South Korea still have blasphemy laws on the books?

Megalia in action again?

What torches? Can you provide more specifics?

I'd be grateful of correction from any South Koreans ... but from what I understand the country doesn't have blasphemy laws, and is considered very strong on free speech by Asian standards. And just because South Korean Christians want to see her legally punished doesn't mean it's going to happen.

All right, I apologize for just dropping a post like that going silent for days. It's been...a long week, and that site is involved.

So a bit more elaboration:

In S. Korea, there is this site called Womad, an ultra-radical feminist site that is more or less a joint website with another infamous ultra-radical feminist site called Megalia. Basically, the members want to more or less kill/slave all the Korean male (they actually worship males from other countries, especially those from Europe/North America).

On July 10th, a member posted an image depicting two images: sacramental bread with words and pictures that blasphemes Jesus and burning of the same bread. She was actually a Catholic herself, fully explaining that the bread was consecrated in a chapel that she attends and the worth of the bread. Then she curses Jesus and Christianity for being a man's religion and must be destroyed.

Here's an image, and another.◊ Warning: Blasphemy of highest caliber contained.

Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, the biggest Catholic organization of Korea, released an official statement, condemning the anonymous user for utterly disrespectful act, as well as a statement that they will not allow another acts like this would happen. Oh yeah, and they will be reporting this to the Vatican.

In the meanwhile, in following days the members of Womad continued to disrespect Catholics AND Protestants alike, by producing more blasphemous contents, such as profane drawings of Jesus and God, as well as making (hopefully empty) threats to set chapels on fire.

This is so far the only article I can find that is written in English, but it's covered in pretty much every major news outlet by now.

Ah, yes.

Because it's not like the Korean Catholics were pretty much among the biggest contributors to the Korean feminism. Talk about being Ungrateful Bastard.

Also, yes, S.Korea practices separation of church and the state and there's no such thing as a blasphemy law. However, Catholics do have a pretty sizable hold Korean society, especially in the laws and politics. For instance, the current president Moon Jae-In (Christian name: Timothy) himself is a devoted Catholic, who even received a rosary from Pope Francis.

There was one time a police officer accidentally caused host desecration. When the officer didn't properly apologize, the Korean Catholics made the district chief of police to make an official apology.

So...yeah. Somebody is in a bit of trouble.

Edited by dRoy on Jul 16th 2018 at 8:28:49 PM

Wait what? I'm gonna need context for this.

So, the rough context is that they have extreme hatred towards men. Think of 4 Chan taken to the extreme and filled with misandrists. They even express hatred towards fellow women who don't share their extremist view.

I shit you not, they view men as Nazis would view Jews.

Yeah, that is usually the case with extremist views. I was wondering more about the 'worship males from Europe/North America' part.

So ... is tithing involved? Because I could seriously use a new desktop PC.

"Because it's not like the Korean Catholics were pretty much among the biggest contributors to the Korean feminism. Talk about being Ungrateful Bastard."

So, any book/articles/documentaries about that in English? Sounds like a pretty fascinating tale.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/16/us/pennsylvania-child-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations/index.html

Pennsylvania lawmakers consider expanding the statute of limitations for the priests involved in the recent sexual abuse scandal, given the fact only 2 of the 301 are able to be prosecuted.

Fully agree with the decision, these horrible acts still linger in the victims' lives, with one woman remembering it every time she hears the word "God" and there's the fact that it only didn't get revealed sooner because of multiple cover-ups.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/15/us/pennsylvania-catholic-sex-abuse-vatican/index.html

I marvel at the righteousness of the Catholic Church.